Blue
by p y n q u e
Summary: Tread lightly, she is near, under the snow; Speak gently, she can hear the daisies grow. / five months is not a long time. discontinued.
1. I

**Inspiration: **sixbillionsecrets.

This will be in a few parts, and I'll update periodically.

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><p>She's sitting at the edge of her seat in the doctor's office, texting away. She should probably be more nervous about what her test results are going to be like, but she can't bring herself to be anything but content.<p>

"Victoria, put your phone away," Bustopher says, his brow cocked. Victoria can only see his nose and above over the newspaper, with a headline about some country – the name of which she can't pronounce – and a picture of a gray cat in a crisp suit addressing a large crowd. Victoria wonders if she should know who the cat is, and assumes he's the vice president or somebody else she doesn't really care about.

"Daddy, the doctor could come in and tell me I've got a year left – don't you want me to use the time I've got?" She's fully aware that this…_joke _is out of line, knows she's struck a very sensitive chord what with the way her father's face tenses and his newspaper crinkles. She decides to ignore the faint pink in his eyes.

_Have u gotten your results back? _a message from Jemima reads. She's about to send a simple text saying _nope _when the doctor enters the room with a grave look on her face.

Her stomach drops.

/

She doesn't register half of the words the doctor says. She can only think that she looks like an angel – her fur is white and tan and her eyes are yellow and her coat is white and she's not a good angel, she's an angel of death. She's an angel of death, telling Victoria the words she somehow expected in the back of her head, but never really wanted to hear. She glances from her father to the doctor, and their expressions are almost to same but daddy's got tears in his eyes (he hasn't shed a tear even since her diagnosis, and this is something she really can't handle now) and looks like he wants to kill himself.

"Did I jinx it, daddy?" Victoria says, the first words spoken after a silence that seemed to last an eternity. She had always been superstitious. She should've knocked on wood when she got into the hospital, should have said _rabbit rabbit _on the first day of the month – maybe if she'd done that sooner she would have never gotten whatever it is she has in the first place, and her father wouldn't be nodding into his hands and Victoria wouldn't feel like she's going to puke. "Let me see the papers. Please," she begs, reaching her hand out to the doctor. The queen gives her this pitiful look, and Victoria almost wants to punch her, like that will beat the announcement out of existence.

Victoria's hands tremble as she takes the tan folder from the doctor's hands and flips through the pages like a madwoman. She sees dreaded words like blood and bone marrow and relapse and _terminal_.

"How long do I have? Really?" Victoria asks. The doctor is silent until Victoria looks up at her, pleading.

"An estimated five months, honey." The queen clears her throat and looks away. Victoria glances at her father, who looks like he's going to vanish at any moment, by pure power of will.

It takes a minute to figure that means she'll be gone by September. She never quite realizes that, by _gone_, she means _dead_.

/

She chooses this moment to respond to Jemima's text, with eyes brimming with tears and mouth agape. Her breathing is awkward and shallow, and she feels a million eyes on her, and million hands within her hands –

_the scans came out clear. see u monday._

/

The car ride home is as silent as it can be. Classical music plays faintly in the background, but Victoria changes it. She can see a protest on Bustopher's lips, but he draws the words back in as a high female voice fills the vehicle. Her phone buzzes, and the name _Traintracks – _Electra – comes on the screen, a cruel joke from a good year ago when Electra still had her braces.

_Jemima told me you're all clear! Im so happy. Lets celebrate!_

Victoria can't bring herself to respond at the moment, so she tucks her phone into her pocket and ignores the trembling of her lips. Bustopher reaches over, grabs her hand, and squeezes.

She begins to cry so hard that Bustopher pulls over on the highway to hold her.

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><p><strong>an: **Yes, that's the end of the first chapter. These won't be very long. At most around 1k.


	2. II

**a/n: **here we are again!

so um I don't want to trick people into thinking this will be very long. I have a plan to make it four parts. so yes. also, I edited some of the first chapter. forgot that ff.n edits your spacers out and stuff. and I dunno if the italics like happened, because I read it after I published it and the italics were gone like eff.

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><p>The hallways are loud and bustling as everyone prepares to leave, excited for the start of summer. There's shouting and singing and hugs and playful punches, and everybody's so happy, but Victoria can barely bring herself to smile.<p>

This is the end of her last year of school, ever. The thought makes her heart clench. The white queen never once thought that she'd miss school from something other than a social standpoint. But on this particular Tuesday in June, Victoria wants nothing more than to give all of her teachers a hug and a proper goodbye. But that would make everything so much more real, and she wants to delude herself for a little bit longer.

Her friends are all joyous and grinning, and why wouldn't they be? They don't have to deal with class for three months, they have their futures spanned out in front of them, and their terminally ill friend isn't so terminal anymore.

Victoria hates lying, but if she hadn't lied, everything would be so different. There would be an air of gloom in the hallways, over the heads of all of those close to her, and Victoria wants to put that off for as long as possible. She wants everyone to be happy for now, because even if it's selfish, she wants her family and friends to smile as brightly as they always do and sing as clearly and dance as smoothly as they have for generations before Victoria was even born.

She wants normalcy.

/

She and Etcetera go around bidding farewells to their teachers, and Victoria wishes it was a bit more final, that people were saying _good luck _and _good bye _instead of _see you soon_, because hopefully, when she finally kicks the bucket, Victoria won't be seeing any of these cats for a very, very long time. She is all right with being alone in heaven if it means that they will live long, successful lives, and that they will have an air of contentment around them when they pass through the pearly gates.

Of course, that would be a much more comforting thought if Victoria believed in heaven, or a next life. She wanted to. (Victoria wanted a lot of things.) She would be much happier knowing there was some kind of paradise waiting for her when she succumbs to her cancer – but even if there was, there was always the possibility that Victoria would be rejected and sent to a much less desirable place full of screams and suffering for eternity.

But there was something Victoria feared more than hell, and that was nothing. Victoria had trouble wrapping her head around the concept of the loss of consciousness. She couldn't imagine everything that made Victoria Victoria, besides her physical body – though that would rot away eventually – just ending, like an on/off switch. The thought made her throat tight and the air escape her lungs. A long expanse of nothingness, blackness, for the rest of time, while babies are born and wars are won and evolutions occur, and she isn't there to see it, hear it, feel it. (Death could at least be white, rather than black – it would be much less lonely, Victoria thinks, a less scary prospect.)

As Victoria walks to the art room with Etcetera beside her, she begins to cry, and when the other queenkit asks what's wrong, Victoria just tells her she's going to miss everyone. Etcetera hugs her and tells her they'll be back in the fall, and Victoria halfheartedly agrees. Victoria resists the urge to correct the crème-colored kit and tell her that Victoria's own hourglass is set for five months.

/

"Victoria!" Electra coos, making her way towards Victoria, who's seated on a beach towel, rather content. "Why aren't you going in the water?" The queenkit asks, taking a seat next to the queen. She shakes her head, droplets of water flinging all over the place. Victoria laughs, covering her face with her forearm.

"Got my period," Victoria lies easily. "Cramps."

Electra gives her a pitiful look, absently digging out of the little cooler Tumblebrutus brought and retrieving a bottle of fruit juice. "Dang. Sorry," the queenkit says, then takes a sip. "I'm gonna go back out there, all right? Plato should be back in a little bit, dunno where he went."

Victoria smiles at the other cat as she gets up to go, watching with a heavy sense of longing as her friends mess around in the probably-still-freezing water. She closes her eyes and inhales, cherishing the smell of salt and fish, the mixed scents wafting from food stands on the boardwalk, the sounds of cats shouting and laughing around her. It almost makes her want to cry, but she ignores the vague stings at the backs of her eyes and lays back with her hands on her stomach. At least she got to wear a bikini, she thinks. She's made a mental list of things she wants to do – needs to do – before she passes, dies, a rather futile effort to come to terms with her situation. It makes her think of the things she'll never get to do, the adventures she'll never get to have in just a few months.

Graduating high school, applying to college, getting into a college. Graduating from that college, getting a steady job. And somewhere along the way, getting married and having kids. Victoria will never get to do those things, and that fact makes her stomach churn. She opens her eyes and stares hard at the umbrella above her.

She hears some shuffling around her, a long sigh. "Well, don't you look so happy?" It's Plato's voice, and that alone makes Victoria smile. She tilts her head towards him, bares her teeth in a playful manner. She sees that he's got two ice cream cones in his hands, double scoops of strawberry and what she assumes is mint, and she's tempted to just reach out and take one.

"Yes, this is for you," the tom chuckles, holding the mint cone out to her. She takes it eagerly, thanking him. The two sit in silence for a few minutes, and as time goes by, Victoria's short-lived elation begins to fade, and she stares sadly at the remainder of her cone.

"What's up, Vic? You've been quiet all day."

She's silent for a moment, considering. She bites her lip, wondering whether or not she should tell him –

"I'm dying, Plato." She says, and it's so cliché but all too real. She can't even look at him, staring intently at her ice cream cone, suddenly not hungry.

"But you said the scans were – "

"I lied. I didn't want to ruin the last couple of days, or your summer, or…I'm sorry."

The air is thick, and it's as if Victoria and Plato are in a bubble, or in an entirely different universe, away from the bustle of the beach and their friends playing Frisbee in the water. Victoria swallows hard, feeling tears well up in her eyes. Victoria flinches visibly when she feels a warm hand wrap around her arm. Plato pulls her closer, and she leans her forehead on his chest, letting tears fall freely. She hears him sniff, and her heart drops.

"I have," she starts. Her voice is quivering and hardly audible. She takes a deep, shaky breath, and starts over. "I've been given five months."

Plato holds her even tighter, and Victoria can feel him shake.

/

Afterwards, when the sun is setting, they're walking along the boardwalk, just the two of them. She's wearing his sweater and holding his hand too tightly.

"I'll never leave you alone," he says quietly. Victoria squeezes his hand, even more tightly than before. She wants to say it back, but instead settles for a quiet,

"I love you."

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><p><strong>an: **there'll be two parts after this. btdubbs I get that it's a little unrealistic for her to be totes fine but only have a little while left, but reasons.

thanks for reading and shiiiitttt


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